Sex Abuse and International Secrecy Imposed by the Vatican
ABC
For 80 years, the Catholic Church did more than discourage the reporting of child sexual abuse, it enforced a policy of strict and absolute secrecy, punishable by excommunication. Noel Debien and Tiger Webb report on ‘crimen sollicitationis’, a papal decree with direct practical effects long after it was repealed. ‘This isn’t a conspiracy.’ Kieran Tapsell is adamant—it’s simply too big for that: 'You can’t have a conspiracy of 5000 bishops.' Tapsell is talking about the air of secrecy surrounding the Catholic Church’s response to allegations of clerical sex abuse. For him, the reason for this secrecy isn’t conspiratorial; it’s the result of a clearly defined canon law. This argument makes up the bulk of his new book, Potiphar’s Wife: the Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse. ‘I don’t like using words like smoking guns,’ Tapsell says, ‘but canon law imposes secrecy, and the law is there to be obeyed.’ Religions are entitled to have whatever beliefs they want to. The most that secular society can do is protect itself against the fallout of these sorts of doctrines. KIERAN TAPSELL, AUTHOR AND FORMER LAWYER It wasn’t always thus: for most of the two millennia the Catholic Church has been in business, priests committing the heinous crime of sexual abuse were dismissed from the Church and handed over to the civil authorities. That changed in 1922 under Pope Pius XI, with the secret issue of one document: crimen sollicitationis. From the Latin for ‘crime of solicitation’, this directive—unusually, not published for public viewing by the Holy Office until 2001—set the standard operating procedure for the Church in dealing with allegations of the sexual abuse of minors. Internal church trials were to be conducted in the strictest secrecy, under threat of automatic and immediate excommunication, only undoable by personal papal decree. Crimen was in force until 1983, but its direct effects on clergy behaviour were long lasting. Another similar policy Secreta Continere updated Crimen, and was released in 1974 by Pope Paul VI creating the Pontifical Secret to replace the Secret of the Holy Office . The Pontifical Secret is still in effect under canon law. Read more: Lessons for Australia from Ireland's child abuse inquiries Listen: UN critical of Vatican response to sexual abuse The policy of crimen sollicitationis—to hear Tapsell tell it—provides a direct link to clerical cover-ups as members of the clergy act according to their canonical directives. ‘They take oaths to follow canon law. They’re not going to break it lightly; they’re not going to break it at all. They’d regard it as a sin,’ says Tapsell. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any efforts to rock the boat, or that all clergy were happy with the arrangement. Less than 20 years ago, the Bishop of Maitland, Michael Mallone, found a legal way around the 'Pontifical Secret' by sending survivors of sexual abuse to see secular counsellors, who are required by the terms of their employment to report any incidences of abuse they come across. ‘It was brilliant,’ says Tapsell, ‘These guys should have been tax lawyers.’ Tapsell, incidentally, is a retired lawyer. In 2002, representatives from the American Episcopal Conference convinced the Vatican to modify canon law for their own Episcopal jurisdictions, so that reporting sexual abuse cases to civil authorities would be once again possible in some parts of America. American law in some states could then have mandatory reporting, but only in the civil law jurisdictions requiring it. Further, in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI updated Vatican policy to permit mandatory reporting in all civil jurisdictions where civil law calls for it. But the fact remains that civil law requires mandatory reporting in relatively few jurisdictions. In Australia, for example, NSW is the only state with such a requirement. Tapsell says this has to change, but he is hardly seeking to limit Catholic autonomy. ‘Religions are entitled to have whatever beliefs they want to,' he says. 'The most that secular society can do is protect itself against the fallout of these sorts of doctrines.’ He raises the parallel with Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose faith prohibits the use of blood transfusions even in the event of a life-threatening emergency. In countries like Australia, the civil state overrules church laws and the children of Witnesses are administered transfusions, because the state does not view children as old enough to make an informed decision under civil law. According to Tapsell, there is another issue at play with crimen sollicitationis. In Catholic theological circles it’s known ‘ontological change': are clergymen, by nature of their ordination, changed in their essential being? By virtue of their position within the Church, members of the priesthood are granted incredible influence amongst their flock. In some countries like Franco’s Spain, Latvia and South American nations, clergy received certain privileges, so that they would not go to jail but spend any imprisonment in a monastery. But everywhere there remains a sense that ‘they’re superior,’ Tapsell says, ‘Not to be treated as common criminals.’ But there’s another aspect to this ontological change; when children are raised in a culture where priests are elevated as ‘superior’, what effect would that have on the children who grow up to become priests? How would they view their own conduct? Tapsell acknowledges that change in so large an organisation as the Catholic Church must inevitably come from the top, but he isn’t optimistic. ‘I just don’t think Pope Francis gets it,’ he says. Perhaps one of the most popular popes of recent history, the current pontiff has came under fire for claiming that ‘no-one else has done more’ to combat child abuse than the Catholic Church. For his part, Tapsell says he had to be convinced by friends to release this book. He had begun the work as a submission for the Royal Commission. Tapsell says: ‘The Royal Commission’s got copies.’ Many more people have copies now too. The Religion and Ethics Report is your window into the world of religious affairs and ethical issues in Australia and around the globe.
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